Cheese straws are an edible product made from a mixture of cheese, flour, margarine and other ingredients, the mixture forming a dough. The dough may be rolled into an elongated shape by hand, or placed in a hand-held dough extruder such as a cookie gun, cut or squeezed out to a length of approximately two to three inches or to a star or other shape and then baked. The final product is a cookie-like snack which is then bagged or boxed for sale.
Presently, the process of making cheese straws is very time consuming. The relatively thick consistency of the dough has not previously lent the process to any form of automated production. In addition, for proper baking, the cheese dough should be relatively flattened for even and thorough baking.
While automated production techniques have been employed for making meat products, as evidenced by U.S. Pat. No. 2,572,833 to Balzarini for an Apparatus for Making Edible Products and U.S. Pat. No. 4,148,598 to Colosimo et al. for an Extrusion Die for Sausage and the Like, the product being produced lends itself to the apparatus and methods. These patents involve sausage making devices, the meat being ground to an almost liquid-like consistency before being channeled into casings.
Thus, for years, cheese straw production has been limited to a few dozen per hour due to the necessity of limited batch production, rolling and cutting, and/or squeezing the dough through a cookie gun by hand, to form the product to a shape which can be successfully baked. This has made the production and sale of the cheese straws prohibitive on a commercial basis, production normally being done only in the home by individuals making snacks or the like or on a limited scale by a bakery.